BRENTANO'S PHILOSOPHY

Franz Brentano (1848-1917) was a main figure in the tradition of Austrian Philosophy. Among his many contributions to philosophy is the idea of studying mental phenomena by first describing them in the way in which they appear to us in inner awareness and on this basis proceeding to their possible explanation. Taking into account the lessons that externalism about the mind teaches us, I think we cannot strictly follow Brentano's order. Nevertheless it remains an important task also for externalists to do justice to the detailed descriptions of mental phenomena that we can provide from a first-person perspective.